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Obama Staffers Followed Palin's Email Lead On Inauguration Day
theodp writes "Using Yahoo's free e-mail service to conduct government business was good enough for Sarah Palin. And now the Washington Times reports that Obama staffers turned to Gmail on Inauguration Day to conduct their business. Those wishing to contact members of the incoming Obama administration were instructed to contact staffers at wh.LASTNAME@gmail.com until official White House e-mail addresses became available."
Are they kicking & screaming about it being a private account or something? I mean it doesn't sound like they are hiding anything by publicly asking people to use it to contact them temporarily.
There is a war going on for your mind.
Will those emails then be transfered to the official email server?
This is clearly a transitional measure, and not a concerted effort to hide communications from mandated records keeping procedures as Bush and Palin are accused of.
whats with every single article on slashdot being tagged with "story" even this??
I think it takes 3 minutes to create an account, including exchange.
How long does it take in the head office of the USA?
I'll see your Constitution and raise you a Queen.
It doesn't matter if you are accused of something if the accusation is not credible. Otherwise: I hereby accuse the Obama team of trying to hide information from public record.
In the case of Palin, a single email was found sent from someone on her staff to her account. It was not even shown that she had replied to it using that address. To simply describe this as "she has been accused of using her private email to hide records" is misleading to the extent of trolling. I would argue it should be even less controversial than the incident described here.
Will Obama be punished if a single one of his staff sends a public business to his private blackberry? Palin has been, in the media. I look forward to Obama getting the same punishment - "has been accused of criminal intent" might even make it to his Wikipedia page.
Thank god Obama would never use a Slashdot account to keep in touch, that would be ludicrous!
Btw, how about lunch @ 12.30pm?
Yes, email sent to gmail addresses is insecure, unlike email sent to regular whitehouse.gov addresses, which is magically encrypted by the NSA's army of highly trained ninja code monkeys as it leaves the senders' machines.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Can anyone confirm that Mr. Azzup is a staffer? :o)
Yes, it's actually just you, because the number of dopes who think the White House doesn't have an IT staff is very small.
Now, for a little puzzle, ask yourself how long it would normally take to create hundreds of email accounts in a secured system?
I know this is /. and I know people can't be bothered to read...
However, if you'd been following the story, you'd know the White House IT people dropped the ball. When the Obama staff walked in at 12:01 to take over, they had phones that didn't work, computers that didn't work, users couldn't log in, and the e-mail servers, for which the White House is infamously known, seemed to be down.
What bothers me is that, knowing this was coming, they didn't have everything tested and ready to go at the throw of a switch (or literally, the click of a mouse). I'm not even going to get into the whole, the staff isn't familiar with the Windows platform and wants Apple issue, because that was covered extensively a few days ago, except to say, it's not as if they haven't had since November to plan for this transition...
Plus it would create jobs!!! Good thinking, lets help the economy.
Because whitehouse.gov mail is more secure? It's e-mail, people. You know. SMTP. It's sent in plaintext over the wire through SMTP servers.
That's why stuff like PGP, GPG, etc. exist.
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Q?
Help fight poverty: Punch a poor person.
Now, for a little puzzle, ask yourself how long it would normally take to create hundreds of email accounts in a secured system?
About as long as it would take to create them in a regular system? Unless the person entering the account data has to do on-the-fly RSA encryption in their head.
Seriously, that security for @whitehouse.gov is (hopefully) tighter than for, say, GMail does not mean that accounts are not likely managed by a few folks via a sleek administrative GUI, just like it's done at any well-managed IT department at medium-sized to large organisations.
Rudolf Hess edited Mein Kampf. He was the very first grammar nazi.
We can find political news anyplace else. This stuff really is not news for nerds and does not matter here.
It's a technology story, not just an Obama story (as was the last one involving cookies). E-mail is Internet tech, last I checked. Gmail is a state-of-the-art free Web-based e-mail service. Obama is the most technologically fluent President ever. What's not to like?
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Damned if you do, damned if you don't.
IANAL, but:
Even a few hours before inauguration, using a whitehouse.org email address could be considered impersonating or forgery. I suspect most of these people had email address ending with @democrats.org (or even @rnc.org) which could be considered bad taste to use in an official use out of a campaign. Yeah, the best solution would have been a @change.org. Gmail comes second.
Anyway, it is disturbing that Google could potentially spy this.
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
Google's free Gmail accounts to work around the fact that their transition emails will go dark at 11 a.m. Tuesday, at least an hour before they will have access to their new government accounts.
The delay is not in clicking 'create account' on the administrative interface, or running a list of names through a Perl script; it's in processing the paperwork that ensures that the people getting accounts are who they say they are, and that their account access is appropriately restricted.
Stupid post =)
I went to school with someone who was on the Bush IT team. Nice guy btw. Anyway while Bush did actually work with Obama from a security standpoint, there was no such working together when it came to IT. Not implying anything malicious either, it just didn't happen. Bush's people were VERY busy making sure nothing that wasn't supposed to be there would be hanging around for the Obama people to come across.
About as long as it would take to create them in a regular system? Unless the person entering the account data has to do on-the-fly RSA encryption in their head.
So... A couple of weeks as new-hire paperwork is processed and filed before the email department is notified of exactly which addresses to create?
They should just start calling gmail, "Goverment" Mail instead of "Google" mail.
"Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy - Benjamin Franklin"
I know this is /. and I know people can't be bothered to read...
Nice. What about my post says that I didn't know that:
However, if you'd been following the story, you'd know the White House IT people dropped the ball. When the Obama staff walked in at 12:01 to take over, they had phones that didn't work, computers that didn't work, users couldn't log in, and the e-mail servers, for which the White House is infamously known, seemed to be down.
What I was saying is that if there was a dedicated staff (ie. independent of the administration) that this kind of thing wouldn't have happened.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I agree, moving data to a computer is much simpler than collecting it from a human.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
WHARRGARBL
wharrgarbl
Typically when a Dem gets into hot water, it also has a half dozen strippers in it.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
Now, for a little puzzle, ask yourself how long it would normally take to create hundreds of email accounts in a secured system?
If the system wasn't designed by chimps, about as long as it takes to create and upload a csv.
Between using a temporary gmail account until your email server is set up and using a Yahoo mail account to conduct government business in secret without accountability or transparency.
GWB's IT Staff managed to "lose" massive amounts of email. These aren't the career professionals that serve one administration after the next.
It looks like we may see a more technologically enlightened administration this time around. The changeover, while painful, at least should function as an effective purge of the incompetent and/or corrupt predecessors.
Palin staff: already had government e-mail accounts, but used Yahoo accounts to conduct business that they did not want to reveal to the public.
Obama staff: losing one e-mail account before they gained their next one, so for a few hours they needed transitional addresses, and Gmail was free and easy to use.
If Obama staff continue to use Gmail for government business, THEN we can equate these two situations. But not until then.
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Obama is the most technologically fluent President ever.
You know, this gets tossed around a lot, and it bugs the living hell out of me. Who the fuck cares? It's irrelevant! Praising Obama for using technology is no different than something like praising him because he likes rock music. It's a completely superficial thing, and doesn't affect his ability to be president in the least.
What's not to like?
So far? Lying to us, ranging from the petty ("My grandma survived WWI, which she was born after") to the serious ("I oppose telecom immunity in the wiretapping fiasco"). Spouting elitist bullshit that implies only those pitiable poor people are religious, and favor strong gun rights (and, by extension, implying that these are things which are to be stamped out, rather than the purely personal choice they are). He appointed a man who didn't pay his fucking taxes to be Secretary of the Treasury. If you or I don't pay taxes? We go to jail. If Obama's buddy doesn't pay taxes? He gets appointed to a high government position.
The tragic part about Obama, especially his FISA vote, and Sec. Treas. appointment, is that he's shown us that, contrary to what he'd like us to believe, he's just another politician serving his ends, not ours. And yes, there is stuff to like. I'm happy he ordered the closing of Gitmo (assuming he doesn't quietly back down on that, but we'll see). I'm happy he's been pushing an open government, not a closed one (again, only time will tell if this is sincere, or mere rhetoric that is spouted while the public's eye is focused upon him).
I hope he makes our country a much better one, but so far, there's as much bad as there is good. Let's not pretend the man is unblemished. At the same time, let's not pretend he's worthless either, since he seems to be doing some good. As usual, the die-hards on both sides are wrong.
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
The problem with Palin's Yahoo use is that it was secret, for one, and second that the emails involved govt. business but weren't recorded anywhere. So, as long as the mails sent and received using Gmail are subsequently archived somewhere, there's no problem. Whether they will be? Who knows.
but server to server isn't.
Once you start using an email address it is with you forever unless you're willing to dump all of your contacts.
Gmail has supported forwarding mail and exporting contacts for as long as I can remember.
The issue was never security. Dude, it's unencrypted e-mail, there's no such thing.
The issue was an attempt to dodge records retention laws that allow "we the people" to keep an eye on what our employees - public officials - are doing.
Since 1) the official e-mail accounts are not yet available, 2) it seems to be only for a few hours, and 3) in TFA, an Obama staffer notes that "could be forwarded to White House accounts and subject to the Presidential Records Act," these concerns don't seem to apply. (Though I wonder WTF these folks couldn't either be provided with the new e-mail addresses earlier, or hold the transition accounts a little longer.)
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You cannot wash away blood with blood
Only criminals require privacy. The Obama team has as much clearance as Bush did and should have access to everything.
There was no working together because from what a little bird told me, the entire white house IT infrastructure is being replaced. I think, in the second term of Bush Jr. things were allowed to stagnate and rather than go around updating the old PCs, they felt the best thing to do is scratch it and start over. Small wonder there's delays then.
Gentlemen! You can't fight in here, this is the war room!
...the e-mail servers, for which the White House is infamously known, seemed to be down.
Well, duh! You can't really expect a server to boot immediately after someone runs shred /dev/hda.
Actually, there is. The White House is an institution upon itself. The security, logistics, kitchen, cleaning, groundskeeping, engineering and, yes, IT staffs work for the Government but are not administration appointees.
The problem isn't a lack of staff.
The problem is a bureaucracy. Part of this is good: institutional pushback that serves to protect the White House and Executive Branch by not being overly concerned with the state of the art.
Part of this is bad: forcing the WH to stay in a perpetual 15-year time lag.
Many of their systems can't be upgraded by law. The can't just upgrade software that hasn't been approved by whatever Govt office is in charge of approving it.
Again, that's not all bad: Imagine it was public that the WH used, say, Novell Groupwise for their email server. If a foreign gov't was so inclined they could recruit a Novell programmer (or infliterate their own) and write code that will silently transmit copies of their emails. That sorta thing.
that was the real problem, you missed it...
This is not about a technical protocol being more secure this is about an organization.
How many employees does google have world wide? how many have been screened to the same level that folks in the federal government have? You are putting mail from executive employees onto a mail server read by people not vetted to be/not to be security threats from more than a half dozen nations...
"Ahh! Arrogance and stupidity in the same package, how efficient of you!" --Londo Molari
I argue, again, that Obama, as does any President, has the right to set up a communications infrastructure that is private and unrecordable. But, even if we put that issue aside, how far up on the priority list is this issue, versus this list.
a) jobs
b) budget deficit
c) looming entitlements meltdown
d) not one, but two wars
e) aligning tax rates and health care with NATO allies
f) trade imbalances with asia
just to throw a couple out there.
If we're going to be political, can we talk about something important?
This is my sig.
I wonder what context-sensitive ads they were seeing?
"Extreme Rendition? Come enjoy all EXTREME sports at Vale."
"Global Thermonuclear War? Get WARGAMES on DVD for $1.99 at Overstock.com"
they are using google docs for collaboration...
"Ahh! Arrogance and stupidity in the same package, how efficient of you!" --Londo Molari
And where does that csv come from? Who puts the names in it? Who ensures that they're the right names? Who makes sure that the right people have the password to the right accounts? See...it's a bit more complicated. Not tremendously complicated, but these things do take time.
Really? What is your source for this claim?
It's irrelevant! Praising Obama for using technology is no different than something like praising him because he likes rock music.
You're right, of course, if Rock music permiated the culture, and knowing about it directly impacted an individual's capability to use it.
Technology has an amazing impact on all of us. It deeply pains me to see people com into an IT office and get down on their knees and beg me to help them with their computer because they basically have no idea how to operate this piece of silicon.
So you had me until you decided to say that knowledge of technology was worthless.
what kind of shitty post is this ? the poster tries to show obama administration in a bad light as if they commenced any unethical practice, or violated any laws, trying to show what they did same as palin crookery.
all they did was to create gmail addresses UNTIL WHITE HOUSE EMAILS ARE GIVEN TO THEM, so that people will be able to contact them through those email addresses. not only that, but the addresses were PUBLICLY DISSEMINATED.
is there an option to put all future posts and comments of a user on ignore in slashdot ? so that i can avoid bullcrap ?
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iirc, there were a few bumps in the road when Bush moved in, too. Either the team that's responsible isn't funded enough, has their hands tied for most of the transition period, or the task is more complex than it sounds. I'm guessing it's all of the above.
In case you are wondering why you were modded troll, it is because all of what you said has been proven to be 100% bullshit. Even George W Bush defended the Clinton Administration and said there was no vandalism. And face it, Bush is the kind of guy that would tell people loudly if there were any.
I used to work in WHCA (White House Communications Agency). I don't know how the PC side of things was or is being handled, however I'm quite aware of how the mainframe side of things is handled. And I'd be very surprised that things are working at 12:01. For the mainframe, on the day of inauguration, full system backups are performed. These backups are then sent to the national archives. After the backups are made, then *everything* associated with the old administration is removed from the system. Only after this is done are new accounts created. I think it would be reasonable to assume that simular procedures are done on the PC side of the house. And somehow I don't think that PDC's are designed to be effectively wiped at the "flip of a switch". Additionally, I don't think that the PCs sitting on each person's desk can be remotely sanitized. And yes, even though they're instructed to not save anything on the local PC, they still do. And it still needs to be cleaned up.
And unfortunately, this can't be done ahead of time since frankly the government continues to function under the old administration until the new one enters. So effectively none of this work can even start until after business hours on the day before inauguration.
here, meet the new troll ..
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So you had me until you decided to say that knowledge of technology was worthless.
Ah, but I didn't say that. I said that it's irrelevant to the ability of the president to do his job. It's valuable knowledge, but not indicative of ability to lead the country, and should not be used to judge a candidate's worth, as it has been.
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
Spy what? Two days of "Dude, where's my office?"
Well, apparently, you only have to fool the majority of people for a little while.
thanks to a cooperative president.
Not according to a previous AC.
Bush's people were VERY busy making sure nothing that wasn't supposed to be there would be hanging around for the Obama people to come across.
Apparently they were too busy covering their posterior and some could consider that a different type of vandalism.
I've lost all my marbles except one & It's fun to test angular & centripetal acceleration in my skull
Bush's people were VERY busy making sure nothing that wasn't supposed to be there would be hanging around for the Obama people to come across.
I bet Cheney himself had a staff of twelve running shredders continuously for the last week...
But there's always something that gets missed. If even a quarter of the rumors and accusations that have flooded around over the last few years are true, I'm sure a few skeletons will be discovered in the darker closets of the white house in the next 4-10 months.
I find the very act of spending your last minutes anywhere trying to do a thorough job of "burying the evidence" etc to be a cowardly, shameless act. For the office of the presidency, it takes it to an all new low. I would personally like to see some new legislation put in place that would put some teeth into the Presidential Records Act that would make such "last minute cleanup" in the white house unarguably illegal.
The office of the President of the United States should be 100% transparent. That person is our representative to the world, and there is simply no excuse for this behavior.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
"1) Google was Obama's #1 campaign contributor and has already received a number of "special considerations" that embed them into the Obama administration."
Actually, I think the people were. But they're generally treated as a separate entity despite them having a shared interest in transparency. I'd argue single biggest contributor whilst sounding threatening isn't. If one person paid Obama £50million and was a nazi, I don't think we'd expert Obama to follow a nazi agenda if everyone else contributed £50billion for example. If Google's interests run counter to the vast majority of other business/people which it would if his administration was favouring one business over another it's not going to get him very far. Microsoft, Yahoo and such would be sure to cry foul. This is different to say the Bush administration who when it came to oil and health focussed on giving the whole industries help for their contributions rather than just individual companies in those industries. It's when things start going in favour of an entire industry you need to start worrying- the RIAA, Hollywood, Big oil, Medical, Finance and so on.
"2) Once you start using an email address it is with you forever unless you're willing to dump all of your contacts. Not to mention force of habit."
No, the article states that they should be contacted on that address, that doesn't mean they're going to start making address books on it and replying from there all the time. There's no reason e-mails couldn't be exported later on into the new system and have the old g-mail address setup to forward to their e-mail servers where auto-responders simply reply saying "This address is now obsolete, please e-mail ". That's a pretty quick easy way to move people to new accounts and the fact it was just an auto-responder rather than a forward means people would have to make the effort to actually send the e-mail again, if it was a forward they may keep using the old address, if it's an auto-responder they'd get used to using the new address pretty quick for conveniences sake.
that's what you should be typing in the console, if you are unable to perceive the simple logic in your parent post. computers are too dangerous for you to be using.
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It sounds like more of a paperwork issue.
For whatever reason, ptt.gov closed at 11 AM Tuesday (Inauguration Day). Probably a policy/paperwork issue.
Similarly, the WH staff were not permitted access to their accounts until the President was inaugurated and officially President. The "official" start time of this was noon.
Not an IT problem, just a stupidly planned policy problem.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
> Gmail has supported forwarding mail and exporting contacts for as long as I can remember.
Really? You might see a doctor about that. I can actually remember a time when there was no Gmail at all -- it wasn't *that* long ago.
2*3*3*3*3*11*251
Inside Obama's Emails
You know, this gets tossed around a lot, and it bugs the living hell out of me. Who the fuck cares? It's irrelevant! Praising Obama for using technology is no different than something like praising him because he likes rock music. It's a completely superficial thing, and doesn't affect his ability to be president in the least.
oh boy - are you stupid ?
whereas almost all leaders around the world cant tall an email from a messenger pigeon, there is a president at the helm of most powerful country in the world, who is also not only tech affluent, but also an addict of one of its implementations (blackberry).
excuse me, pal, but I do care. if you cant fathom the amount of i.t./tech/nerdiness/geekery/internet culture in this, turn in your geek card on your way out.
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Welcome to the government. Each needs to go through CAC setup. That's an "in person, get your photo taken and wait for the card to print, oh, whoops, this one didn't laminate right, let's retake..." type of process. Email and network access is non-existent before CAC access. Or, likely something similar. Every agency's a little different.
Yes it is legal to use personal email, unless there's a law against it.
These people are not emailing their cousins about last week's day trip. They are elected government officials. Laws have been passed to monitor and regulate elected government officials to reduce the amount of corruption. These laws include monitoring and archiving of email.
Obama has been pretty transparent in this matter. He found out the correct email servers were not ready, so he decided to use Google's email servers as long as the required archival process would be performed. He was told it would, so they're moving forward with Google until the White House servers are available.
Certain jobs you might have tend to chip away at your freedoms in exchange for taking the job. It is not like a member of the military is free to go and come from work as he pleases. Nor is a police officer free to rummage through your stuff for gifts for his children. Some people do it anyway, and when they are caught they typically become criminals in the eyes of the law.
It's a fact of life that government officials have to have their official email archived. They're free to use non-archived email for personal matters, but not for governmental ones.
The big difference here is that Obama went ahead publicly after asking for a guarantee that the emails would be appropriately archived, while Palin signed up for her account in private and then was caught doing the bulk of her less flattering governmental business with the non-archived account.
Whether the email account is from a service like Google or from the White House's own servers is not the issue, it's whether the proper rules and regulations for government email are being followed.
I haven't seen it mentioned yet, but GMail allows any user to put dots (.) in their email address as they want to help filtering and general formatting. So really, anyone with a GMail account starting with "wh" already has an address you could format like this.
whiney@gmail.com == wh.iney@gmail.com == w.h.i.n.e.y@gmail.com
WHARRGARBL is the sound dogs make when they attempt to drink from a lawn sprinkler.
WHARRGARBL is also defined as a representation of what fundamentalist religious ranting sounds like to unbelievers, which is more likely the correct meaning in this case since the story is the kind of thing that right-wingers can get worked up about nowadays.
Putting moderation advice in your
The best part about closing Camp Delta is that another detention facility will have to be built elsewhere in less than a year. So, on top of wasting the money spent on building Camp Delta in the first place, the new facility gets to waste money to do it again. However, this time it will be more expensive because it has to get done faster.
Closing the camp was a PR move and a waste of taxpayer money.
James Coburn plays the psychiatrist in the movie "the president's analyst". Someone wants to know what the president is thinking so he has to run. When he finally realizes that all his telephone conversations are bugged he asks "who could bug every telephone call in the country".
Who could bug every e-mail conversation in the whitehouse?
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
The whitehouse was a functioning government office with thousands of employees up until 12:00 on Tuesday, and at 12:01 all ~3000 employees were replaced. If it all worked smoothly it would have been nothing short of a miracle.
What's amazing is that a should-have-been-expected bump in the road has turned into a partisan political battle, where Democrats say the Republicans lived in the technological dark ages for 8 years, and Republicans say the Democrats botched the transition.
This is the kind of story that the main-stream media should have filtered out and pushed to the back pages. You know... If responsible journalism still existed.
I heard that the White House kitchen staff was in disarray so the staffers set up a turkey slaughter house on the White House lawn and Obama did an interview in front of it. Will they ever learn?
You meant "whitehouse.gov" (Office of the POTUS) and "change.gov" (Office of the President-Elect), not "whitehouse.org" (parody site) and "change.org" (activism in general), didn't you?
Palin already had an official government account.
That said, I think this suggests a need for the government to set up some sort of official email system for transition officials. @transition.whitehouse.gov maybe, and set up autoforwarding on the 20th.
"What will be my personal phone line ?"
"This guy who got arrested with a scope rifle yesterday, was he released ?"
"When can we say that Abbas will be the first leader to be contacted ?"
"Is the meeting date with Putin official yet ?"
"I got blackmail from xxx@xxx.cn, probably nothing but I just wanted to tell Secret Service about it."
"So, will Tesla Motors be part of the bailout or not ?"
I'm so sure that Google would be totally unable to use such information for their own profit...
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
Wouldn't most of the new account work be done ahead of time?
Let's start here:
White House Vandalized In Transition, G.A.O. Finds
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D0CEFDE163CF931A25755C0A9649C8B63
But if you want, you can search for "clinton white house vandalism" if you like.
To be honest, I thought every one knew that transitions of the White House between parties were filled with this stuff.
Is the Bush staff playing dirty pool with the Obama staff? Probably, but its more of a tradition than an isolated Bush is Evil incident.
It could have been worse. They could have taken a cue from the Clinton playbook and removed all the letter "O" keys from the keyboards.
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But 1) there's no guarantee that all the servers in the recipient chain are using TLS and configured correctly. If the server at the other end doesn't support TLS, the SMTP server just forwards it silently over normal cleartext channels.
And 2) Gmail also supports SMTP over TLS. As long as the emails contain unclassified material, it doesn't matter whether they get forwarded over Gmail or not. Oh yeah, and classified material is NEVER forwarded over the Internet, encrypted or not.
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Hey, you know what's a jerk thing to do? Complain about someone misspeaking during a eulogy to their grandmother the day after she dies.
Obviously, he meant "World War Two" rather than "Two World Wars." I'll give you FISA, but that's about the stupidest complaint about any politician I've ever heard.
Also, by the way, most people do not go to jail for incorrectly filing their taxes. If they are audited and found to be non-compliant, they pay back-taxes plus interest and penalties. This is what Geithner did. There are serious questions about whether he purposefully misfiled; we'll probably never know the whole story. But it's absurd to say anyone else would have gone to jail for this. Also, the IRS audited him and found the problem long before he had any involvement with Obama. The Obama team actually made him pay back taxes that were beyond the statue of limitation, and that he was therefore not legally required to pay.
Just because you sold your soul to the devil that needn't make you a teetotaler. --The Devil and Daniel Webster
Ah, but I didn't say that. I said that it's irrelevant to the ability of the president to do his job. It's valuable knowledge, but not indicative of ability to lead the country, and should not be used to judge a candidate's worth, as it has been.
It's indicative of his willingness to stay on top of issues relevant to this nation. Take ex-Senator Ted Stevens, for instance. He was incredibly uninformed about technology and how it impacted our culture; as a result, he promoted some truly terrible legislation that no competent, informed person would consider. Would you put him at the head of the United States Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation knowing full well that he couldn't tell the difference between a cable modem and a brick?
Now we have a president that is informed on the benefits of open source software and net neutrality; I'd argue that's hugely indicative of his potential to promote sane legislation. Given the fact that he's been charged with enforcing the nation's laws, knowing the technological turf he'll be playing on is pretty important to leading. I'd say that's pretty damn well relevant.
Sure there's people that can take his place in advising him, but the more everyone knows about everything, the better decisions we can make in everything, especially things that have a direct impact on society.
" The General Accounting Office, an investigative arm of Congress, said today that ''damage, theft, vandalism and pranks did occur in the White House complex'' in the presidential transition from Bill Clinton to George W. Bush. The agency put the cost at $13,000 to $14,000, including $4,850 to replace computer keyboards, many with damaged or missing W keys.
Some of the damage, it said, was clearly intentional. Glue was smeared on desk drawers. Messages disparaging President Bush were left on signs and in telephone voice mail. A few of the messages used profane or obscene language."
I've always said that the G.A.O were a bunch of trolls. Them and those New York Times people. I hope you make sure and head over to their sites and mod them down as trolls for spreading these lies. 100% bullshit.
Nothing can stop you from making assumptions. Why bother looking for some facts when you can just assume that the Bush Administration would take a certain action because you have so completely figured them out that you don't even need to say, do research.
Or you could have easily looked it up on say... Google and read the first article to come up.
"The Bush White House was deeply disappointed with the report. Alberto R. Gonzales, counsel to President Bush, had demanded that the accounting office provide more detail, including the full text of graffiti and other messages that were ''especially offensive or vulgar.''"
You can read the full text if you like at:
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D0CEFDE163CF931A25755C0A9649C8B63
It's from 2002, so I don't blame you for having not read it. Its only been available for seven years.
Obviously, he meant "World War Two" rather than "Two World Wars." I'll give you FISA, but that's about the stupidest complaint about any politician I've ever heard.
I did say it was a minor issue. But minor or not, it's still a lie, and shows Obama to be in the same lying, opportunistic political mold we know and love.
Also, the IRS audited him and found the problem long before he had any involvement with Obama. The Obama team actually made him pay back taxes that were beyond the statue of limitation, and that he was therefore not legally required to pay.
It doesn't matter. The fact that the Obama team would appoint someone who is either a) uncaring enough about the law, or b) stupid enough, to somehow not pay multiple years of taxes speaks volumes about their standards for who they work with. I don't care that he's paid the amount. The fact that he let it go untouched for so long shows a lack of either character or intelligence, and either way, he shouldn't be running our treasury!
If they are audited and found to be non-compliant, they pay back-taxes plus interest and penalties.
I know that you have to do that, but I was under the impression that the IRS had a very short leash (a couple of years or so) before they prosecuted you for tax evasion. If I'm wrong, so be it, but it doesn't change the fact that Geithner does not belong in the Cabinet.
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
At least we dont have to worry about a college student using wikipedia to "hack" into these accounts. ...Or do we?
Why does there need to be much downtime between the change in power? Couldn't the Office of the President Elect establish a ready-to-go e-mail server, that would be slid into place on the government rack at whitehouse.gov at Noon on Tuesday?
It is stored on the servers of a private company that has no contractual obligations to the government. This is not a good idea...
I love Gmail, but this is ridiculous. Google has no contract with the government, its terms of service void most liability (that's what "free" means).
It also uses a non-reserved namespace. Right now, within a few minutes, I could sign up for wh.obamma, wh.barrak-obama, wh1te.house and any number of other unclaimed addresses and possibly pick up sensitive email sent to misspelled addresses.
Regardless of whether all email is encrypted or signed (and remember, this is the government, half of which is probably using Outlook), this is a bad idea. Kudos for using Gmail, which is the best webmail service in existence, but this shouldn't have been necessary.
Who the hell is running IT at the White House? Shouldn't they have set up .gov accounts for the entire administrative staff some time back in November? What was the hold-up?
I get notification from my HR department about new employees at least two weeks prior to their start date. In that time I and my staff create email accounts, domain accounts, set network permissions etc... Then on their first day everything is set and ready to go. Occasionally employees are actually given web access to email before they officially start work (but not before paperwork is signed). Our employee manual specifically forbids using outside email services such as Google, Yahoo, etc... for corporate email. Not so much for security but for auditing and accountability reasons.
There is no reason why the outgoing IT staff at the White House could not, at the very least, create email accounts for the incoming administration prior to their arrival. I sincerely hope that when the time comes for the O-Man and his cohorts to leave office that they don't go through this same mess. Inexcusable.
- SR
That's true, but he also doesn't need to use the technology to be familiar with it. I'm not gay, but I have a decent understanding of the issues surrounding gay people in our society, for example. If I lacked a nuanced understanding because some issue didn't personally affect me, I know enough that someone closer to the situation could explain to me.
Furthermore, use does not imply understanding, as beleaguered IT workers all over would tell you. Many people use technology and are reasonably comfortable with it, but are complete idiots about it too.
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
Take ex-Senator Ted Stevens, for instance. He was incredibly uninformed about technology and how it impacted our culture; as a result, he promoted some truly terrible legislation that no competent, informed person would consider. Would you put him at the head of the United States Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation knowing full well that he couldn't tell the difference between a cable modem and a brick?
I appreciate what you're saying, but ol' Ted is a bad example, because, as a member of that committee, he was expected to have specific knowledge of the issue being tackled. The president's scope is more general, so he doesn't need that intimate knowledge.
Now we have a president that is informed on the benefits of open source software and net neutrality; I'd argue that's hugely indicative of his potential to promote sane legislation.
I wouldn't be so ready to believe he has any more understanding of these issues than someone who's computer illiterate. Many PHB's have toys like blackberries, but are complete idiots with respect to technology. Use is not required for understanding (as long as you have a basic level of understanding, someone who knows more can fill you in), and does not imply understanding. So... why get all worked up over his use of technology? It tells us nothing.
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
So according to you, a "lie" is anything someone states that is untrue, regardless of intent to deceive. According to that definition, you lied earlier when you said you would have gone to jail for failure to pay an obscure tax (this is simply not true). Hope you never want to run for President.
I guess there are people out there who think Obama is some sort of messiah and above all reproach, that nothing he does could possibly be wrong. You are the opposite of those people; you are ready to condemn anyone who doesn't live up to your impossibly high expectations. I don't expect politicians to be perfect, just as I don't expect any human being to be perfect. The perfect, as they say, is the enemy of the good.
I'm really getting tired of all the stupid cynicism around here. It seems more like an excuse to be uninvolved: "hey, don't blame me for the problems we have, I told you Obama was a big fat grandmother-lying politician just like the rest of 'em." If you don't like Geithner, come up with someone better and start writing letters.
Just because you sold your soul to the devil that needn't make you a teetotaler. --The Devil and Daniel Webster
So according to you, a "lie" is anything someone states that is untrue, regardless of intent to deceive.
No. I did not say that. You're assuming I accept the explanation that Obama made a mistake. I do not. I believe he lied.
You are the opposite of those people; you are ready to condemn anyone who doesn't live up to your impossibly high expectations.
My expectations aren't high. I expect politicians to be honest in what they tell me. I expect them to be willing to protect certain fundamental rights. Obama has failed both of these tests (lied to us, and failed to protect our right to privacy), which is why I anticipate a bad presidency from him. I will be ecstatic, of course, if I'm wrong, but that's my belief based on what is known of him at this time.
If you don't like Geithner, come up with someone better and start writing letters.
I've written letters to my representatives before. I got a form letter response and no action was taken. I've since given up that useless form of action. When I had the chance to take action with my vote, I took it. Experience has taught me that, now, the die is cast and there's nothing I can do.
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
Since this is another US centric article and from the reads most people don't understand who Palin was and how the USA is setup is here is basic intro.
Palin is the governor of the STATE of Alaska who ran for a FEDERAL position. During the time she ran for the federal position she was still the state governor and did work as the state governor. She did state and political party work on a Yahoo account.
If she had been elected as Vice-President or had been working for the White House work related documents on Yahoo would of been illegal but she was not and was doing state related work and so far no-one has pointed to an Alaskan law saying she could not do it.
Not that this should be a shock, she had many claims put against her that were correct and permitted under Alaska law but members of the opposition political party figured they would use to attack her.
Now in the USA federal and state laws are separate and while many federal laws must be followed by the states, the laws that the article are complaining that governor Palin did not follow do not deal with the states.
Actually, if you look at the Obama crowd, they (Jarret, Axelrod, etc.) are from the UofC/Hyde Park/Harold Washington Party crowd -- the folks that beat the Machine in Chicago, at least for a while.
You could argue that since then, a new and bigger Machine has evolved, I suppose, but I don't think that would be accurate.
- "History shows again and again how nature points out the folly of men" -- Blue Oyster Cult, 'Godzilla'
Your right to point out that email should be considered (as of now) inherently insecure unless you take some kind of extra precaution (e.g. PGP encryption).
On the other hand, there are levels of security. FTP is basically insecure, but if I had to put confidential information on an FTP account, I'd still want to put a password on that FTP account.
Likewise, I do think it's dangerous to have the Whitehouse's emails stored on a private company's servers. How hard is it to set up an email address? How long does that take? You should be able to buy a domain, install a mail server, and set up 50 email addresses in a day.
And given this and the story earlier about the White House using Youtube, it makes me wonder what's going on between the administration and Google? Do they have some kind of special deal going on?
I think the mood of the white house staff has a lot more to do with the amount of vandalism than "a cooperative president." Clinton's office staff was pissed off that Bush got elected because they felt that Clinton was doing good things and did not get a fair shake from Republicans, and because of the whole election fiasco in Florida leaving them questioning Bush's legitimacy.
Bush's office staff was in all likelihood less attached to the man, at least towards the end. Even the Republican presidential candidate emphasized the areas where he differed from Bush. I can't help but feel that a fair number of staffers thought, "Thank God that's over" as they were getting ready to leave, and simply didn't think to vandalize the place.
Your brain is not a computer.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
First off, failure to retain records is not a moral obligation. I would argue that, morally, keeping everyone's secrets written down and then exposed actually undermines the Presidency and significantly so. Before the PRA, if you were a private person and had a secret, and shared it with the President, it would stay secret. Now, after the PRA, anyone with a FOIA can now sue to get your secrets, as they are part of his or her official correspondence, and the only thing that stops that process is the Reagan and Bush executive orders which the House now wants to stop. It's stupid. If the left gets its way, no one in their right mind with any information of consequence would talk to the President in any way, leaving the office flying bind. Sigh.
From a "right" perspective, the right to Presidential privacy is documented in the sense that there is no enumerated power in the Constitution to actually tell the President how to conduct his or her business, or to expropriate the President's property. So, in that sense, the PRA of 1978 is flat out unconstitutional, as is the revision to the PRA coming from the Congress.
As a matter of a technicality, e-mail and chat are not covered by the PRA, because you argue that they are more like a telephone conversation, which is NOT recorded, than they are correspondence. The revision to the House is a law that "fixes this", but again, I would argue that this law is as unconstitutional as the PRA is.
This is my sig.
Praising Obama for using technology is no different than something like praising him because he likes rock music.
No, it's really not. Changes in technology have effectively changed the way the world works. If you don't see that, then either (a) you're too young to remember how it used to work; or (b) you're too old to understand how it's working now.
Technology is a tremendous economic issue, since changes in technology can drastically increase our efficiency, and failure to keep up would cause us to lag behind the rest of the world. It's a social issue in that a lack of access to technology and technology education creates another barrier to the poor working their way out of poverty. It affects issues of justice, as we've all seen with struggles over copyrights and patents, censorship, and net neutrality.
And yes, it's also a cultural issue too, like saying "he likes rock and roll". But that's not entirely superficial and irrelevant. If the chief executive of our country doesn't understand the various cultural shifts going on in our country, then how is he supposed to govern it effectively?
Notice how no one links to the GAO report?
You seem to miss a key part the NY Times article makes that they say comes out of the GAO report:
After all of this, they can't definitively say it is any worse than any previous transition?
If anything, your source has hurt your argument.
No. I did not say that. You're assuming I accept the explanation that Obama made a mistake. I do not. I believe he lied.
That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. You think he deliberately crafted that response in order to mislead, even though the statement itself contained information that trivially disproved the misleading claim. And for what? Because having a grandmother who lived through two World Wars, instead of World War II, means... what exactly? What on earth do you imagine he intended to gain?
You know Bush made plenty of factual gaffs regarding history. I never assumed his intent was to lie, because how could getting a date from a hundred years ago wrong actually help him? Lying is what he did about the evidence for WMD in Iraq, and the danger posed by the insurgency. Lies that actually benefited him. Why would he "lie" and say there's an old Texas saying that ends "fool me twice... you can't get fooled again"?
Obama has failed both of these tests (lied to us, and failed to protect our right to privacy), which is why I anticipate a bad presidency from him. I will be ecstatic, of course, if I'm wrong, but that's my belief based on what is known of him at this time.
He only failed those tests based on your ludicrous and deliberate, calculated attempts to view them in a way where failure is the only option. The lie thing is just ridiculous. And yes, he failed to protect our privacy, but you know that he tried and choose to deliberately ignore the fact.
So no, you would not be ecstatic to be wrong, or you'd have made being wrong a possibility. You can never be wrong. The only way you could be wrong was if Obama was, in fact, perfect in a way that not only meant he never made a mistake, but could also accomplish things well beyond the power of his office with ease.
The enemies of Democracy are
Okay, so we have staffers using non-government email to conduct government business? There is at least one law on the books about archiving WH emails for various purposes. That they are relying on external systems at all for that purpose seems like a clear violation. Whether Palin did it or not does not justify the new WH staff violating the law. "He committed murder, so I can commit murder, too."
That they are using a rationalization means they know they are violating something. But now, they have established a shadow infrastructure that allows them to continue to carry on government business outside government channels. Nothing prevents them from continuing to use this shadow infrastructure after they have legitimate accounts.
I would have thought that most of these accounts could have been created during the transition. It's not like the previous transition, where members of the outgoing administration ripped the letter 'W' off the keyboards and slipped porn into the paper in printers and copiers. If the prior administration here caused any significant delay, you can bet your bippy the press would have informed by the incoming administration.
My point is 1) that the delay is probably a ruse, or at best a minor inconvenience and 2) the new administration has established a way to violate federal law.
Maybe we should all set up gmail accounts with WH....
What those who want activist courts fear is rule by the people.
And yes, he failed to protect our privacy, but you know that he tried and choose to deliberately ignore the fact.
A "fact" which exists purely in your imagination. If he had tried, he wouldn't have used his power to our detriment. That's it. End of story.
So no, you would not be ecstatic to be wrong, or you'd have made being wrong a possibility.
And now we reach new, idiotic, heights of presumption. No, I will be ecstatic if I turn out to be wrong. Why the hell would I actually wish ill upon my country, and by extension, myself? I don't want Obama in office, but since I can't change that, I want to be floored by how wrong I was. I want him to be the best thing since sliced bread. I merely don't think it's going to happen.
The only way you could be wrong was if Obama was, in fact, perfect in a way that not only meant he never made a mistake, but could also accomplish things well beyond the power of his office with ease.
No, I'll be wrong if he's a good president who restores liberties which we have lost in the past 8 years. I'll be wrong if he works to reduce the abuses of power we saw under Bush. If you think I want him to be perfect, you've managed to read what I said without actually understanding a word. I don't want him to be perfect. I expect to disagree with people on things. What I do want is for him to have the fundamentals right, which he's shown he doesn't (so far).
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
And there's some really important need to send e-mail for this one hour when everyone's already busy?
It does not shock me. It's all in good fun... like the W keys being removed from all the keyboards when Clinton left office. We had to replace a few keyboards, so what? I ask fora new keyboard every time I take a new job anyway. Its the ones like these that kind of bug me "A few of the messages used profane or obscene language." and "graffiti derogatory to Mr. Bush on the wall of a stall in a men's room".... these are not in the spirit of good fun, but oh well what are you going to do? You can't keep an eye on everyone in your last week(s), and would you even want to? Personally I'd hold a few parties at the white house on my way out, get some kegs on tap, have some card tables going, a few strippers, you know go out with a bang! Hell I'd probably invite the president elect and his transition staff. That will ease up some tension between staff a bit.
magically encrypted by the NSA's army of highly trained ninja code monkeys as it leaves the senders' machines.
While this is obviously not true, the NSA contractors are trained to look out for emails to or from whitehouse.gov addresses. When such emails are detected, all contractors are trained to immediately cover their eyes with their hands, press their thumbs into their ears, and yell "nananana" for the 30 seconds while the email passes through their screens. The e-mails are never presented in audio form, but the audio self-impairment methods are considered a redundant form of encryption.
All of our other e-mails are read, made fun of, and passed around if deemed NSFW.
I don't think that PDC's are designed to be effectively wiped at the "flip of a switch".
;)
I've got a degausser that begs to differ
I don't see your point. There is nothing key about that statement at all. The previous poster seemed to imply that there had not been any vandalism at all from the Clinton and demanded proof. Proof was given. That was the sole intent of my post.
I have to admit, I'm a little confused by why you are painting my post as suggesting that I thought that the vandalism was more or less substantial than in any other transition. In my post I said,
"To be honest, I thought every one knew that transitions of the White House between parties were filled with this stuff."
To me that sounds pretty much like I was saying exactly what the report said. So, where you get that I am saying the opposite is beyond me.
To make this clear, I'm not specifically attempting to make the parent's point for him. I did feel that the respondent's terse demand for citation, which implied that he felt the parent was making this whole thing up, needed to be addressed.
The vandalism DID happen, and it was investigated and proven. Make of that what you will, but if the respondent wants to take issue with the parent's assertions, I wish they would do it by not attempting to present good facts as something less than they are.
A "fact" which exists purely in your imagination. If he had tried, he wouldn't have used his power to our detriment. That's it. End of story.
Ah, so voting for the amendment to remove telco immunity is my imagination. Got it.
No, wait, that was reality. Imagination is where you pretend that the vote on the funding bill was solely a vote on telco immunity and an indication of how he stands on that issue and that issue alone. Deliberately ignoring 1) how he voted on that particular issue and 2) ignoring everything else in the final bill and the reality surrounding the vote.
And now we reach new, idiotic, heights of presumption. No, I will be ecstatic if I turn out to be wrong.
Yes, if Obama turned out to actually be Jesus, I'm sure you'd be happy. If I made a trillion dollars on the stock market tomorrow and found out I was Superman, I'd be happy too. Yet since obviously that's not going to happen, and you and I both know it, any reasonable person would realize that you and I are deliberately setting ourselves up for disappointment by setting the bar impossibly high.
No, I'll be wrong if he's a good president who restores liberties which we have lost in the past 8 years. I'll be wrong if he works to reduce the abuses of power we saw under Bush. If you think I want him to be perfect, you've managed to read what I said without actually understanding a word. I don't want him to be perfect. I expect to disagree with people on things. What I do want is for him to have the fundamentals right, which he's shown he doesn't (so far).
Ah but see, I do understand what you are saying, at a level that goes deeper than just blindly accepting when you say "I don't want him to be perfect". You can't say "I don't want him to be perfect" in one sentence, and then say "He has failed because he didn't do something that would be impossible to do" in the next, and not have the deeper truth come out. Just because you don't want to admit it, doesn't mean I don't understand what you're saying. I understand quite well.
After all, if what you said here was true, then you'd already be admitting you are at least partially wrong, since Obama began rolling back Bush abuses on day one. But, again, you deliberately ignore reality, and people only do that when they have already decided they don't want that reality to be true. You don't want to be wrong about Obama, and you're making it impossible for you personally to ever believe that you were.
So make whatever superficial claim otherwise you wish. The deeper meaning is clear. You want the impossible. I'm sick of people who will only settle for the impossible.
The enemies of Democracy are
And have it functional afterwards?
And I've remembered a bit more about what things were like in WHCA after an administration change. When Clinton took over from Bush, in order to preserve the contents of the PCs (remember the backups made of the mainframe), what happened is that the hard disk drives themselves were removed and transported to the national archives. I will say that it's a effective way to make certain that everything on the PC is preserved. However, it also means you have a rather non-functional PC until a new hard drive is installed and the OS reloaded.
From the outgoing Bush side = not my problem.
From the incoming side, using campaign hardware or accounts for gov business (and mostly, using the government for campaign business) is a big, serious go-to-jail ethical no-no (Bush did it for years with the RNC accounts, but that's sort of making my point). So they'd want a brightline division between before and after they become government employees. So new, clean (in terms of who pays for them) accounts ASAP, which in this case is Gmail.
It's kind of a clever organizational hack, really - once the word goes out of the scheme, people can self-organize as soon as they're hired in with zero overhead or IT skills. Not a long term solution, as imitators can spoo
And when they're done, they set them to POP down to the official accounts so it's all public record. Not really an issue.
Ah, so voting for the amendment to remove telco immunity is my imagination. Got it.
And also a meaningless gesture. It doesn't matter what road he took to get to his final vote, his final vote is what counts. Get that straight, because if you don't, you'll be deceived left and right by politicians for the rest of your life, and they'll screw you over, while you blindly accept it because they took superficial action you supported before they bent you over.
you and I are deliberately setting ourselves up for disappointment by setting the bar impossibly high.
No, I set the bar at a reasonable level: I want the man to be honest with me, and protect my rights. He failed at both of these before he was even elected. That was while he had incentive to do right by the people. Now he has no such incentive, since he got to the office. Just like any other politician, it's only sensible to bet that his behavior will degrade once he gets what he wants, and his behavior was shitty to begin with.
Ah but see, I do understand what you are saying...
No, you don't understand a damn bit of what I'm saying.
ou can't say "I don't want him to be perfect" in one sentence, and then say "He has failed because he didn't do something that would be impossible to do" in the next
I never said he didn't do something that would be impossible to do. He had a vote. He chose to vote against the people on the FISA issue, rather than for them. Would the bill have passed without his vote? Probably, but that's irrelevant. By voting like he did, at the very least, he shows that he's willing to harm us as long as it furthers his political career. Well, fuck him, then. I want a representative who puts my interests ahead of his.
After all, if what you said here was true, then you'd already be admitting you are at least partially wrong...
I already have. Again, you show that you haven't bothered to really pay attention to what I said. To quote myself, from my very first post in this thread: "Let's not pretend the man is unblemished. At the same time, let's not pretend he's worthless either, since he seems to be doing some good." I already recognize that he seems to be doing good so far.
So make whatever superficial claim otherwise you wish. The deeper meaning is clear.
Ah, yes. "I see what you have said but I wish to put other words in your mouth, so I am expressly ignoring what you say." Classic material there. You are reading into my words things that aren't there. You are, as they say, so full of shit your eyes are brown.
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
Certain jobs you might have tend to chip away at your freedoms in exchange for taking the job. It is not like a member of the military is free to go and come from work as he pleases. Nor is a police officer free to rummage through your stuff for gifts for his children.
In what way is a police officer not being free to rummage through your stuff an example of someone chipping away at his freedoms in exchange for taking the job?
And what does this have to do with Sarah Palin exactly? The title of the story didn't need her name in it, nor is this even news.
And also a meaningless gesture. It doesn't matter what road he took to get to his final vote, his final vote is what counts. Get that straight, because if you don't, you'll be deceived left and right by politicians for the rest of your life, and they'll screw you over, while you blindly accept it because they took superficial action you supported before they bent you over.
Actually neither vote counted, both were meaningless gestures, as anyone connected to reality can see. You are picking the "final vote" as being the only true indication of what Obama believes regarding telco immunity, completely ignoring that this was not the only thing in the bill and thus cannot by any reasonable reality-connected person to represent his opinion regarding only that. But you are not reasonable, and cherry-pick whatever you like to show that you're being "bent over".
Even though, as is obvious, if his intent was to deceive with his first vote and then "bend you over", he could have gotten the same effect by voting no in the final vote since the bill still was guaranteed to pass. Which is why it's hilarious having you tell me I need to "get it straight", when you don't even realize that the final vote was equally "superficial".
If he'd voted against removing the immunity provision, and then voted against the final bill, what would you have concluded then? That despite his earlier vote, he was actually against telco immunity?
No, I set the bar at a reasonable level: I want the man to be honest with me, and protect my rights. He failed at both of these before he was even elected.
Yeah, I already know how reasonable a judge of honesty you are. Seriously, that bit about the grandmother was pathetic and sad of you and you should probably never bring it up again. Really, it was sad, and very telling.
And yes, he failed to protect your rights. Explain to me how Obama could have plausibly protected your rights in reality, as in actually stopped passage of the bill, or admit that your expectation here is unreasonable.
No, you don't understand a damn bit of what I'm saying.
But I do, your failure to admit the consequences of what you're saying is leading you to think this. But those consequences exist, admit it or not. You have a completely unreasonable and irrational expectations that are completely divorced from reality.
I never said he didn't do something that would be impossible to do. He had a vote. He chose to vote against the people on the FISA issue, rather than for them. Would the bill have passed without his vote? Probably, but that's irrelevant. By voting like he did, at the very least, he shows that he's willing to harm us as long as it furthers his political career. Well, fuck him, then. I want a representative who puts my interests ahead of his.
Saying it's irrelevant that the bill would have passed anyway shows just how divorced from reality you are. You're saying you would actually be happier with a candidate who deliberately ignored anything in the bill except the one thing you care about, and then made a pointless grandstanding gesture of voting against it even though it would certainly pass anyway, resulting in the same outcome, and causing that person political harm for zero actual benefit to the people.
That's what's so funny. On the one hand you don't count meaningless gestures like the vote against telco immunity, but on the other hand your whole beef with Obama is that he didn't make the meaningless gesture you wanted him to, even though it would have meant no more than the first vote did. In fact if you think his first vote was somehow duplicitous, then obviously (to the reality-connected) so could have been a 'no' vote on the final bill. That you think there's a difference is just proving my point.
What's not so funny is that if the candidate you want was actually running, the kind of candidate who deliberately ignores political reality for the sake of staying "pure" through pointless gestures that
The enemies of Democracy are
I think that my original statement is pretty on-topic and relevant though the Google Fanboys Klub has modded it otherwise.
Obviously few people on this thread understand how email works or what the consequences of it may be.
The fact is that Google will be the recipient of emails going to the highest levels in the Government. They will be able to scan them, read them, etc. I don't care whether they're forwarding or storing, they still are the first point of routing and thus have full control over what happens to them. This is not appropriate any more than having RIM as an intermediary to the President's priviledged Blackberry communications.
But by all means, go back to droning "but they do no evil" if it makes you feel better.
My poetry site welcomes the unusual.
Let's start here:
White House Vandalized In Transition, G.A.O. Finds
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D0CEFDE163CF931A25755C0A9649C8B63
That doesn't confirm much. It doesn't even say how many keyboards, out of the 62 replaced, were missing W keys. It could be just a few. But I'm guessing zero. Who has claimed to have personally seen the supposed vandalism? I find it odd nobody ever took pictures of it. The GAO interviewed 100 people, which is enough to get several people to report rumors they had heard as truth. I wouldn't be surprised if there were even a few people who had developed false memories of the events after the rumor had gone around a while.
Check out the following links:
http://archive.salon.com/politics/feature/2001/05/23/vandals/print.html
http://dir.salon.com/story/politics/feature/2002/06/13/scandal/print.html
http://www.fair.org/activism/vandal-update.html